The development of software solutions increasingly uses an object-oriented approach. Recently, a complementary approach has been defined, which provides a service oriented approach to developing complex business software solutions. In the service oriented approach, smaller business components are developed with well defined interfaces and contracts. These business components exchange business data, rather than objects, and can be loosely coupled to create a more complex business software solution. In this manner, the business components provide a highly flexible, efficient, and extensible solution for developing complex business software solutions.
However, many services provided by businesses do not require a software solution or the software solution is only a small part of the overall services. For complex services, several groups of individuals, each with its own expertise, may participate in delivering the services at various stages. As a result, the efficiency and overall quality of the service is highly dependent on experts at each stage of the delivery. Additionally, each delivery often is defined in an ad hoc manner. As a result, handoffs between the stages often are not well-defined, and the tasks, assets (e.g., tools and methods), and skills available and/or required at each stage may vary based on the group.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists to overcome one or more of the deficiencies in the related art.